


You Came Undone

by clicktrack_heart



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Car Sex, Cuckolding, Episode Fix-It: s02e13 Mizumono, Episode: s02e11 Ko No Mono, M/M, Revenge Sex, Unsafe Sex, kind of?, will withholding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-27
Updated: 2016-04-27
Packaged: 2018-06-04 22:53:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6678670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clicktrack_heart/pseuds/clicktrack_heart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will has sex with someone else but it doesn’t go the way he plans (yes, again!) OR Will figures out how to hurt Hannibal, only he's not proud of it either. AU ending to the episode Ko No Mono.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Came Undone

**Author's Note:**

> Major <3s to [LoneWombatKing](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lonewombatking/pseuds/lonewombatking) for encouraging this filth, [FerventRabbit](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ferventrabbit/pseuds/ferventrabbit) for sharing in this twisted withholding kink and proofing, and [PeaceFrog](http://archiveofourown.org/users/peacefrog/pseuds/peacefrog) for assuring me this is readable!

*~*~*~*~*~*~

He comes as soon as Hannibal calls. The entire drive to Baltimore, the words "Margot," "hurt," "accident" reverberating in his skull like a soundless scream.

At the hospital, Hannibal had been waiting, predatory as a shark scenting blood in the water. Without flourish, he had ushered Will to Margot's room, one hand grazing low to the small of his back. He stops to let Will go in first. There's only the illusion of privacy as Hannibal pauses at the door to speak to one of the ER doctors. 

The large private room is immense and for a moment all Will can think is how predatory the machines around Margot seem, like they're feeding from each quiet intake of air. He is sure that everything is the best the Verger money can buy, but he can still feel Margot's pain, louder than any reassurances of her medical care. She looks so frail and defeated, even in unconsciousness.

There's nothing to do but witness her injuries in silence. Will absorbs the mottled purple and black bruises on her face and collarbone, one at a time. Will doesn't ask about the baby or who did this. The answers already hover in the air, like poison apples ready to pluck.

He can see the design of Margot's attacker as clearly as he sees the freshly stitched laceration on her forehead, her limp hand cradling an empty stomach.

_I did this because she touched him, took something that I couldn't. I don't like others touching my things._

Hannibal did this to Margot. Revulsion worms through Will's stomach. 

Mason was just another sadistic cog in the ever turning wheel of Hannibal's influence. Hannibal did this... because he was jealous. Because he wanted Will. For what? Will had killed for him. For the past few weeks, Will had performed perfectly, had shown Hannibal he could put down a long pig like the trained mongoose he always wanted.

Even now he feels Hannibal beside him, assessing him, wondering and... oh, _marveling_ over him. Will's loss, Margot's devastation, nothing more than a move of a puzzle piece, a quiver to an earthquake. 

Will barely hesitates before he leaves. He can't be with Hannibal now and he doesn't care if Hannibal knows it, Jack be damned. 

Something surges in his gut and Will gets sick in the bathroom on the way out. The gift shop is his next stop, just to buy a tube of overpriced toothpaste so he doesn't have to taste his own vomit for the rest of the day.

It's in the cramped hospital elevator that he runs into Brian Zeller.

Zeller notices him immediately, giving him a friendly bump with his shoulder. Will startles, barely managing a nod. The memory of Brian's apology for blaming Will for Beverly still floats between them. Will doesn't think they've really talked since then, though Beverly's death still festers inside them both, directionless and unhealed in completely different ways.

In Will, there are also other wounds, named Abigail and Georgia and Alana and Margot. 

"Hey man, what's up?" Zeller asks. "You here for work or to visit someone?"

Will doesn't respond. He stares at the buttons for the various floor numbers on the control panel.

From the corner of his eye, he sees Zeller play with his scarf, trying to make up his mind on whether to talk or not. Unfortunately, he chooses to speak, loudly clearing his voice.

"I was just visiting Beverly's little sister, Kate. She's just had surgery to have her ACL repaired. Hockey game accident."

"That's nice of you," Will says stiffly, then falls silent. 

He can still hear the drip drip of formaldehyde that was used to preserve the sawed sections of Beverly Katz’s body.

"How is Kate doing?" he asks, so he won't gag instead.

"The year has been tough but she'll be OK. She's a cute kid. We're um, really proud of her," Zeller replies. "What about you? You sure you're OK?"

Will can't stop his twitch. "N-no, not really. And I don't want to talk about it with you."

Zeller's lips pucker like he ate something sour. "Fine by me. I was just being friendly."

"Friendly isn't all you are," Will retorts, half under his breath as he crosses his arms over his chest.

"Excuse me?"

Will wets his lips, tastes the emotion overwhelming him in the small space of the elevator. It's like caramel, cloying and sweet, sticky at the back of his throat.

"I can feel the way you look at me, you know," he says. "Like I'm something tasty you want to eat."

"I don't-"

"Don't lie."

Zeller laughs in disbelief, glaring at Will and shaking his head. "Alright, congratulations. You're attractive and you know it. Gold star. You don't have to be an asshole. It's not like I humped your leg or something."

"Would you like to?"

"What?"

"Hump me."

Zeller doesn't respond.

Will dares a glance at him from the corner of his eye. He feels like he is going to be sick again. "I haven't got all day. Yes or no would suffice."

The elevator dings as the chrome doors slide open.

Zeller still hasn’t done anything other than look bewildered.

“Forget it,” Will says. He intends to sound angry, his general go-to with Zeller, but he can’t stop his wince at the way his voice comes out, frail and thin. He rubs his face for a second, trying to pull himself together. “Just pretend this never happened, that’s fine.”

He pushes past Zeller and into the hallway. There’s a two-second lull before he hears Zeller’s sneakers squeaking on the tiles as he maneuvers past patients, doctors and visitors to catch up. 

“Will, stop,” he calls, drawing close as they go out the exit doors. Will pointedly ignores him, even as he keeps pace, following him closely till they’re away from the other people waiting around the lobby entrance, passing the line of cabs picking up and dropping of patients and are nearly inside the parking garage. 

Will’s car is down in the basement level and he heads down the stairwell, without acknowledging Zeller. 

“Just hold on a second,” Zeller mutters. He grabs onto Will’s arm to slow him down.

“Get out of my way,” Will growls. He turns enough to glare at Zeller’s fingers on his sleeve. His grip is lose enough for Will to break and for that alone, Will doesn’t shove him, or come at him with fists.

Zeller shakes his head but removes his hand, showing it open palmed to Will. “Christ, you’re a piece of work. What was that in the elevator? You think I can just forget that?! You need help Will, not sex.”

“Do me a favor and give me your medical opinion only when it's regarding the bodies we're examining.” 

"You’re the one who seriously asked me if I want to have sex with you. You don't even like me—do you? But yeah, let's just keep this professional," Zeller drawls, an undercurrent of anger thrumming beneath his words.

Will's lip curls at the familiarity of the phrase. "Is that what you told Freddie Lounds?"

“You- you asshole,” Zeller breathes. He lurches forward, pointing accusingly at Will. “She’s dead and you’re still talking shit about her. So fuck you,” he says, his hands balling tight. 

Good, violence, Will understands that. 

“That’s the idea, right? Fucking? You followed me for a reason and I'm pretty sure it has more to do with blowing off steam than checking on my welfare." Will lets his gaze drag down Zeller's purposefully toned body, disdainful yet curious, a mirror of the way Zeller looks at him in the office. "You're not as altruistic as you think you are, Brian." 

“And you're always so in tune with everyone's motives, aren't you. Maybe I just want what you're throwing away," Zeller shoots back. He snorts derisively. "Jack's favorite little bloodhound.” 

Will smirks as he studies Zeller -- the furrowed brow, narrowed stance, all postured masculinity -- he sees so clearly how he thinks, Zeller might as well be telegraphing his inferiority complex. Yet he’s not sure Will is going to follow through with any of it. To Zeller, Will is almost asexual, and in that he comes off utterly inexperienced in every way. While he's right about Will not having many sexual partners, he's about to be very surprised by Will's threshold for discomfort and the many ways in which Hannibal has _elevated_ it. 

Will considers the options to push this further, how he wants it and where. His seats are covered in dog hair and the associations involved -- he doesn’t want to start seeing Zeller’s dick every time he drives to work or looks in the backseat. 

“Where are you parked?”

Zeller bites his lip and gestures with his thumb to the far edge of the garage level. Will recognizes the dark blue Jeep Grand Cherokee in a corner spot behind a pillar, several spaces beyond his own car.

“Yours,” he decides. 

They make it to Zeller’s Jeep without speaking, Will trying to envision how this will play out, perhaps Zeller doing the same. 

He feels like a puppet when he jerks forward, all wooden and taut strings. He presses his lips to Zeller’s dry ones, just to get it over with. The contact is brief, less than a second. A toe in the ocean so to speak. 

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Zeller says but it's like he's not even aware that he has spoken -- he crowds Will against the car and Will arches into him, squeezing the knobs of his shoulders tight. 

“Good or bad, it won’t matter,” Will replies. His voice is husky, unfamiliar to his own ears. 

Zeller frowns, exhaling before he kisses Will, longer and deeper this time. It’s a strange thing, their mouths pressing, rough and also insistent. Their tongues feel like two matches striking, hot and charged. There's nothing tentative about it, no assurances or seduction needed. Zeller tastes like licorice and coffee, the smells of iodine and the disinfectants used in the lab stronger than his aftershave. 

“Your car,” Will says, breaking away. And Zeller unlocks it. 

It’s awkward as they clamber in, but Will is motivated to feel something, anything. It’s not long before he’s practically on Zeller’s lap, tongue down his throat, Zeller’s hand snaring his hair.

In between sharp gasps, their mouths meet, slick and probing. Their jaws and chins rub against each other, and Will can feel all the little scratches lighting up his skin. He’s never felt anything like it before. Then Zeller traces his lower lip with his tongue and Will decides the difference is not entirely unpleasant. His stomach is empty, his head pounds and he's getting hard, evidence enough of his feelings on the subject. He can't stop himself from wondering if Hannibal ever thought he would be interested in this. Was that why he never tried? Too crude and obvious? It certainly wasn’t fucking ethics.

Zeller is close to the same height and matches the gruffness of Will’s touch easily. For a second their foreheads touch, before Will shies, easing away from the contact.

Impatience and revenge drive him just as much as his libido and he pulls Zeller’s jacket off and starts on his shirt like it's his job. Zeller doesn’t stop him, just squeezes his thighs, sucking at his mouth again. 

"Have you done this before?" Will asks, one button of Zeller’s shirt quickly undone with each word. 

“Yeah,” Zeller replies, as Will skates his hands over his chest, feeling both hair and lean muscle. With his fingertips, he grazes each nipple with his fingertips, they’re hard and flat like pennies. 

“A few times,” Zeller admits with a small moan, when Will pinches a little too hard. 

“Good,” Will breathes. 

“Have you?” Zeller volleys, raising one thick eyebrow. “With a man.” 

“No,” Will smiles. He steels himself then grabs at Zeller's crotch, feels his erection pressing hard against his fly. “First time.”

“Fuck,” Zeller says. “You-” Will stops him with another kiss, a play for dominance that he knows the other man will enjoy too well, especially when Will lets him win. Zeller grabs fistfuls of Will’s shirt and Will helps him pull it over his head before it is tossed aside. 

Legs tangle together, unable to get much leverage in the back seat. Still, Will works at his pants and Zeller helps, lifting up his hips. 

“This is crazy,” Zeller manages and then there’s a moment of hush, their breaths stilling, when Will peels down Zeller’s boxers, exposing first the wiry thatch of his pubic hair, and then his dick, to the stale air inside the Jeep. 

Will studies him like a mechanical piece. A tool. They’re similar in size, but Zeller is slightly thicker and uncircumcised. 

Will takes a moment to explore him, stroking the fold of skin and feeling the weight of him in his hand. Will has watched porn and he knows what he likes, and that guides him, simple cause and effect. Yet he thinks of Hannibal as he follows one thick vein down the foreskin, and he hates himself for it. The acidic taste of betrayal circulates in a close loop in his mind, even as his hand curls and Zeller starts to fuck his fist.

Will scoots backwards, making clear his intention but he doesn’t bother asking if Zeller wants his dick sucked. The decision is simple -- Will decides to blow him because he thinks Hannibal wouldn’t want him to _sully_ himself in that way, and he very much wants to be sullied. 

He bends at the waist, fist still coiled around Zeller’s cock and his tongue darts out to taste the swollen pink crown. He tastes salt and soap, the musk of fresh sweat. There’s a hint of bitterness too and it’s not... bad, not like Will wants it to be. 

“Christ,” Zeller mutters. His gray eyes are heavy lidded, sleepy and sensual at the same time, and his head falls back as Will's lips close, sucking tight around his shaft. It’s so easy, nothing to worry about or concentrate on. Thoughts thin like air as Zeller energetically pumps his mouth full of his cock, guiding his head down. 

Will entertains the idea of Zeller coming down his throat as he sucks, or pulling out just enough to streak hot across his face. If he came that way, Will would barely wipe it off before going to see Hannibal in his office. But- but that damage would be superficial. And Will wants to slice much deeper. 

His gag reflex spasms nearly as soon as Zeller’s hips bow off the seat. Panic rolls his throat tight, until he’s in his kitchen, mouth open and slick. He sees Hannibal above him, deep throating him with a plastic tube, one hand caressing his cheek with affection. 

Will chokes and pulls away just enough to breathe, spit still connecting his lips to Zeller’s cock until he hastily wipes it with the back of his hand. 

“Don’t want to do that anymore.”

Zeller swallows, words registering slowly in his surprise. “Okay.” The windows have steamed behind him and sweat glistens above his lip. “Okay,” he repeats. “That’s fine. Do you want me to um, do you?” 

"No, not like that.” Will says. The offer is irritating, prickling against his skin like an itch he can’t scratch. “I was hoping you'd fuck me.”

Zeller’s response is a thready breath in and out, one hand reaching down to grip between his shaft and glans.

“I don’t have lube,” he says, squeezing his eyes shut. “Or condoms.”

“I’m clean,” Will replies, though he hasn’t gotten checked for anything since having sex with Margot. The lie slips out so easy, another mark of Hannibal’s influence. “And I know you are too.”

Jack now requires his team to have “voluntary” medical exams on a regular basis, the decision made promptly following Will’s diagnosis with encephalitis last year. They both know this yet Zeller bites his lip, studying Will’s face as he hovers weightless and precarious in his indecision towards fucking Will bare. 

Will just needs to push him, just a little, to get his means to an end. He searches the hallways of his mind, opens the door that calls to him. 

He feels like Margot, confident and wounded, her whiskey-tempered words coming back to him like a faraway whisper.

 _”It’s okay. Just do it. It’ll feel better this way.”_

He has no idea he has spoken out loud but Zeller pulls him closer, lust-blown eyes swallowing him down like a drowned ortolan. 

He lets Zeller kiss him again and their tongues tangle briefly, impersonally, before he rolls over so there’s no eye contact. His nerves are spiraling like shooting stars down to his belly. He doesn’t close his eyes again, warding away Hannibal’s ghost as best as he can.

There’s the sound of Zeller pulling Will’s pants down his knees and spitting quietly into his palm, and then Will feels him spread the slickness to his body, nudging his ass with one wet finger.

It’s uncomfortable mostly, a wrong feeling rising in him about what he is allowing Zeller to do. The ache only sharpens when two fingers manage to squeeze inside. He grits his teeth against the pain, thinking if what he does now hurts Hannibal half as much, it will be a victory. 

Zeller reaches around and starts to rub his cock, trying to be _considerate_ , and Will feels his strokes inside and outside his body. It’s almost too measured, too slow, and his thoughts are pressing on him like walls. Like this, there’s no place to hide, no denial he can make against the pleasure riding him.

 _How does it feel?_ Hannibal asks, curious but not detached. 

“Just get on with it,” Will says. “I won’t break.”

Zeller’s fingers curl inside, and Will gasps. “Yeah, like that.”

“Jesus, Graham.”

Images of Hannibal sputter like static when Zeller removes his fingers and then presses his dick against the taunt muscle of his ass. The muscle tenses firm, and only after a few dips does Zeller start to breach it, teasing him open. Will turns his face away even as a small groan rattles out of his diaphragm. 

“Will,” Zeller breathes, shuddering as he strains to not move, even with his dick awkwardly halfway inside Will. “Are - are you OK?” 

“Stop talking,” Will grinds out between clenched teeth. “Just fuck me.”

He shoves himself backwards hard, and his hole gives with one bright flare of agony as Zeller’s cock sinks all the way in. It’s dry and painful, but still his belly is warm, pleasure at being fucked at Hannibal’s expense settling deep there.

“You know, I like your mouth much better when it’s full,” Zeller says, trembling against the back of his thighs. 

Will rolls his eyes but his breath is as uneven as Zeller’s. Zeller grabs onto him tight and push-pulls him again onto his cock. He bears down hard, and it feels like a punch. Will wheezes, burying his face into the fold of his arm. He finds his own erection and starts to rub himself, the pace shifting fast from punishing to brutal. 

His teeth tear into the chapped skin of his lips as Zeller’s hips snap-snap forward. He tastes blood, but it's distant to the unnatural stretch of his body, his spine curving to get the full sensation. 

“Will,” Zeller mutters. “You’re- going-” 

Will doesn’t stop moving, trying to keep their pace. Zeller curses. 

“Oh, fuck, just wait,” Zeller shivers and spits twice more, clumsily spreading the saliva around Will’s aching hole. He thrusts in deep again, only this time his cock slides in so much easier, and he bottoms out so fast. The pleasure catches up with the pain quick, leaving Will breathless. 

It’s good- Hannibal’s face flickering underneath his eyelids every time Zeller thrusts in so deep that Will imagines him lodged in his bones and still not moving Hannibal. Another cry escapes from his throat, anger twisting in his gut. He wants it to hurt _both of them_ , wants to set his nails and teeth to something other than himself for once and tear until there’s nothing left. 

“Harder - fuck me harder,” he gasps. “Ah, is, ah, this how you fucked your last girlfriend?” Will exhales as Zeller grunts, shoving hard into his hole. “Is that why she dumped you?” 

Zeller huffs loud, fingers pinching bruises into Will’s hips. Will looks over his shoulder and the car is dark but he sees the other’s sweat sheened face, the pain and disbelief laid bare as their bodies.

“Ah,” he smiles, resting the top of his head on the seat. “Is it because you fuck like you do your job-- half-assed?” 

“Fuck you,” Zeller growls, and with one hand pushes Will face flat on the seat. Will laughs, though the sound filling the car is more like little broken gasps for air than a real chuckle. He knows how he sounds, so he presses his palm against his mouth, stifling the noise as well as he can. There’s just something amusing in how the leather feels good, cool against the heat in his cheek, each time his skin scrapes back and over it. Zeller doesn’t stop anymore, doesn’t even seem to realize Will is still laughing, words slipping from between his fingers.

“Harder. Fuck me- ah - like you hate me,” Will says. Zeller does-- filling Will up with it. Each thrust burns, an evisceration nearing completion. “Fuck me like you shouldn’t be visiting Beverly’s sister alone.”

Zeller swears, grips his hair tight before shoving him forward one last time. He comes inside Will, flooding him as his head slams into the car door. The impact only brings Hannibal into sharper focus. 

Will pulses like an open artery in his hand.

*~*~*~*~*~

An uncomfortable weight descends on them after, a wet and heavy blanket of snow on an under patched roof. Will and Zeller separate and dress quickly, studiously avoiding each other’s eyes. The humidity in the car has thickened with sex, and Will’s shirt is already sticking to him as he buttons it.

“I don’t know what that was,” Zeller says. His eyes lift to Will’s. “I shouldn’t have. Done that. You hurt your head.”

It’s not the only thing that hurts.

“I might not be sure about a lot of things but you had my consent,” Will replies. “You didn’t do anything I didn’t ask for.”

Zeller chuckles darkly, scratching the back of his head. “Yeah, well you have issues.” 

“My issues have issues,” Will corrects.

“What you said, you know, _during_ , I wasn’t exactly thinking with my brain, but it kind of still registered,” Zeller says, glancing up at Will uncertainly before his voice comes stronger. “We might not be friends, but - but I don’t blame you for Kate or Beverly or anything else. I don't _hate_ you.” 

“Gee, thanks,” Will replies sarcastically, reaching for the door handle. “You’re now a founding member of a very small club, comes with an all-access pass.” 

He turns away before Zeller can respond, wincing slightly as he gets out of the backseat. He shoves his pants the rest of the way over his hips before closing the door behind him.

*~*~*~*~*~

There’s one stop he has to make before he goes to see Hannibal, driving to the Verger family home on the rolling edges of Baltimore County.

When Hannibal hovered in his shadow in the hospital, like a hunter waiting for the stag’s legs to fold, he knew he would go. He just didn’t know what he would do. 

He still doesn’t know, even at the moment he runs up behind the guard. 

He wants to kill him but settles for choking him out. 

The barn looms large, a wretched place of suffering. Then there’s Mason, so rabid he’s barely human. He deserves to be put down and Will wants to do it. He would _enjoy_ it.

Hannibal knew that of course, and not killing Mason would be seen by him as something like a rejection of a present. He hopes that rejection hurts like a bitch too, especially when he finds out Will sent Mason after him.

Regifting is, after all, so tacky. 

Will focuses on Mason with contempt. The pigs squeal loud below them.

“What you, your sister and I all have in common is the same psychiatrist,” he tells Mason, then drops him hard on the metal grate. 

Will has a gun pointed directly at the prodigal Verger before he can spin around.

“Dr. Lecter is the one you want to be feeding to your pigs.”

He’s still angry, but he’s also curious to see what happens. What Hannibal does, how he reacts to this-- appetizer. 

The main course is in downtown Baltimore, in Hannibal’s office, for their standing appointment.

*~*~*~*~*~

“Will,” Hannibal greets. The edges of his mouth turn up slightly at Will's entrance. There's smugness there, but also a hint of concern.

Will waits for it to fade. The insides of his thighs are still sticky with Zeller’s spit and semen. He still aches from his time on his knees. 

“You didn’t answer your phone earlier,” Hannibal says, only mildly accusing. “I think you’ll be happy to know that Margot has regained consciousness.” He looks as though he wants to add something more but then he pauses, titling his head curiously at Will.

Will watches as Hannibal’s brow furrows, nostrils delicately flaring to trace the bouquet that clings to Will, each scent he detects fresher than the wilting remnants of Old Spice.

There's the smell of pigs, yes, something Hannibal expected, but barely below the stench, a furor of leather and semen, sweat and spit... Comprehension is sudden. Hannibal's mouth thins with it, his eyes turning flat and lifeless.

His reaction is fine as gossamer but Will sees, every twitch and blink is minute but tactile as braille when it comes to revealing the wound in Hannibal's underbelly. Slowly, Hannibal recovers, his shoulders straighten, barriers groaning back into place.

It disturbs Will, how much he wants to dig his nails into the other's walls, until both rip apart at the seams. 

“You were intimate with someone,” Hannibal says, slowly. “While Margot, the mother of your child, was fighting for her life in the hospital.”

“Don’t.” Will growls. He has to pause, take a deep breath. His throat flutters like something is trying to burst free. “It wasn’t like that with her and you knew it. You put Margot in the hospital. You sacrificed her, threw her like a teething bone to her brother. She was your patient and she trusted you. I thought you were better than that.”

"And I thought you understood. Lies sanctified, consciences devastated, we spoke of this, did we not? These actions were called for, vital to your rebirth."

"I never agreed to this."

Hannibal smiles with his teeth.

“Who was it?”

“It doesn’t matter. Anyone but you I would have... gladly endured.”

Hannibal focuses on him in a way that makes the little hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

"And endure you did. Tell me Will, did you think of me when his hands were on your hips? When you let him in your mouth, let him bruise your lovely lips with his cock."

"Yes," Will whispers, his voice a dreadful rasp.

Something wistful flickers in Hannibal’s eyes, gone as fast as it appears. Then, almost leisurely, he sighs and stands. His posture is non-threatening, relaxed even as he comes round to the other side of the desk. Will knows there's something sharp tucked out of view under the sleeve of his suit jacket. Perhaps a letter opener, purposeful and sharp enough to perforate skin, or the knife he uses on his drawing pencils, conveniently hidden against the warmth of his wrist.

Will is still as Hannibal edges close, no suddenness or immediacy at all to his steps. It's only when he's close enough to touch that Will falters, steps backwards uncertainly.

Hannibal pauses at that.

“I am afraid I feel rather like Othello confronting his Desdemona. 'It is the very error of the moon; that makes men mad'," he quotes.

“Only I was actually unfaithful to you. In every way," Will answers.

“O well-painted passion,” Hannibal says, his lip curling. He's closer now. Will steps back again, towards the windows.

Hannibal narrows his eyes.

“I must say I am surprised by you, Will. You wanted to anger me. Even if it would cost your life," Hannibal says.

Will doesn't reply. It feels as though the tide is closing in and his breath rushes out, the office curtains fluttering behind his back.

Fight or flight, he thinks. It's what Hannibal is prepared for, knife pressing into his palm. Dimly he wonders if this is it, the moment Jack wanted. Is he reeling Hannibal in for Jack though, or for himself? He doesn't feel triumphant, just tired and bereft.

“I wanted to hook you," Will says. It's a confession to himself as much as it to Hannibal. "Suffocate you as you have done to me. And in those moments, know you.”

Hannibal inclines his head. Will feels his exhale ghost across the line of his jaw, he's so close.

The knife in his sleeve snakes out, pointing at Will's belly until it makes contact.

"And do you know me?" Hannibal asks. "In this moment?"

The question is punctuated with the press of the blade against him, harder now, more certain. Will feels its point dimple both his shirt and navel, dragging ever so carefully that he can feel it mark his flesh but he doesn't move away from it, just looks at Hannibal, the sweep of eyelashes against the shadows.

"Yes," he says. "I know you."

Speaking shifts their mouths to hovering. Will is transfixed until the moment Hannibal breaks away, his mouth twisting with a snarl as he folds in on himself.

The knife retracts with him and Will startles at its loss.

"You can't kill me," he says, words soft, barely sounding above the hammering tenor of his heart. "You can't finish it."

He wets his dry lips, tasting copper as his cut reopens.

Hannibal slowly raises his head, pupils already dilating at the drop of blood beading Will's lower lip. He doesn't close the distance but the heat in his gaze makes Will flush all the same.

“Well done, Will," Hannibal says, accent choking his voice like a squeezing hand. His shoulders still heave, broad muscles flexing underneath his pressed shirt. “You do know me. As I know you.”

Will closes his eyes. He sags his back against the window, finding relief for his weary joints. The office stills, save for their ragged breaths joining together, a panting mockery of a kiss.

And Will’s not sure who is the spider or the fly anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Send me stuff at [EmCWrites on Tumblr](http://em-c-writes.tumblr.com/).


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